Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Thank you...Custom Cabinetmaker wants to built a Custom Drift Boat..'

Thank you for all of your reply's. Ordered the bible of Drift boat building. Thinking about going thu the Montana river boats for plans..Any input ....Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on November 2, 2011 at 6:59pm

Tyler, get your book, read it, then decide.

Rick Newman

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Permalink Reply by Dave Z on November 3, 2011 at 4:52am

Sandy's boats are sweet, time tested and nice designs. good luck!

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Permalink Reply by lhedrick on November 3, 2011 at 8:25am

Tyler,

Years ago I started building from Sandy's plans. Over the years we have corresponded over many issues. A few years back I left his core plans and started to tune them to my own hull shape. The one item I did not change was the 56 inch bottom. Last spring I built a 16 foot higher sided version of his his origonal plans. There were some other changes to the hull for big water also.

Last spring Sandy came down to Utah to run the Green river through Desolation Canyon with a few of us builders for 7 days. We got to talk about a lot of things. He clearly knows his stuff and has helped the evolution of the river boat. On reason we are looking beyond wood is partly because the quality of plywood is just not there any longer at a reasonable price.

Tom Martin from AZ and others are building replicas of the first boats to run the big western rivers back in the 1950s. These are all wood boats which help to show people how we got here.

This forum is dedicated to classic wooden boat building. It is not usually looking to new technologies or materials. It is a classic approach to boats built for fast rivers. The boats here are what I learned from my father back in 1959. Like the builders here my father built small speed boats from plans he got using wood frames and plywood. This site is doing a great job at preserving the history and helping keep the classic boats on the water. The montana-riverboats site is a site for anything goes ideas on how to build riverboats. Wood, glass, foam, composites of any kind.

Both sites can advance your overall knowledge.

The unmodified honky dory design of Sandy's is in my view the best boat out there in that it yields the most boat possible from 4 sheet of 4X8 plywood with almost no waste. It's a great design. It is a frameless stitch and glue design. As a cabinet maker you will have the skill to build it in the classic way with frame if that is your goal.